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Sunday, April 28, 2019 NEWS WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES

Ancient Bible recovered New Civil War museum

STOLEN ARTIFACT: 1615 artifact turns up at museum in Holland;
was among rare items allegedly taken by Pittsburgh archivist
By KAREN ZRAICK
New York Times
A 1615 Geneva Bible sto-
len two decades ago from
the Carnegie Library in Pitts-
burgh in a long-running theft
scheme has been recovered
from a Dutch museum, the
FBI announced Thursday.
The Bible was among hun-
dreds of rare books, maps and
other items, worth about $8
million in total, that the authori-
ties have said were stolen by the
archivist in charge of the collec-
tion over nearly 20 years.
Prosecutors say the archivist,
Gregory Priore, 62, sometimes
walked out of the building with
the items in plain sight. He then
sold the works to a prominent
book dealer, John Schulman, 55,
whose shop was a block away
and who had appeared as an ex-
pert appraiser on the television
show “Antiques Roadshow,” ac-
cording to an affidavit.
The two men were charged
last year with numerous
counts of theft, conspiracy
and other charges, and await
trial. Robert G. Del Greco Jr.,
a lawyer for Schulman, said
his client maintained his in-
nocence, but declined to com-
ment otherwise. A lawyer for
Priore did not immediately
return a call on Friday.
FBI officials said they had giv-
en the Bible to the office of the
Allegheny County district attor-
ney, Stephen A. Zappala Jr., who
is prosecuting the case and will
use the Bible as evidence.
The Bible is similar to one
known to have been carried to
North America by the Pilgrims
aboard the Mayflower, Robert
Jones, special agent in charge
of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field of-
fice, said at a news conference
Thursday.
Using sales records, inves-
tigators last year traced the
Bible to a museum focused on
American pilgrims in Leiden,
Netherlands, said the muse-
um’s director, Jeremy Bangs.
Mike Manko, a spokesman
for the district attorney, said
the museum bought the Bible
in 2015 through a private seller
for $1,200, and that it was cur-
rently appraised at $5,500.
Bangs, an American histo-
rian who has lived in the Neth-
erlands for decades, said he
had acquired the Bible from a
reputable seller for exhibitions,
scheduled to take place in 2020
and 2021 in Massachusetts, on
the books that Pilgrims owned.
The Bible was translated
by English Protestant exiles
in Geneva during the reign of
Queen Mary Tudor, the muse-
um’s site notes. It is also called
a “Breeches Bible” because
of its unusual translation in
has fresh look at conflict
OPENS MAY 4: Richmond facility aims to defy conventional ideas of war
By GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER
Washington Post
RICHMOND, Va. — Sheets
of rain pounded the tower-
ing glass walls of this city’s
new American Civil War Mu-
seum as workers raced to fin-
ish preparations for its May 4
opening. It seemed fitting for
the Capitol of the Confeder-
acy — gray skies above, gray
stone below, and across the
lobby the ruined brick arch-
ways of the former Tredegar
Ironworks.
But behind that ruin — art-
fully preserved as the cen-
terpiece of the $25 million
facility — the exhibits aim to
shatter expectations of what a
Civil War museum looks like.
Yes, there are all the artifacts
you’d expect: Robert E. Lee’s
hat. J.E.B. Stuart’s boots. A
Confederate battle flag.
And there are “Hey, Ma-
bel!” oddities: a fossilized bis-
cuit from the siege of Vicks-
burg, a pocket journal split by
a fatal bullet.
the way that past continues to
reverberate.
The project’s ground-
breaking took place a few
days after the 2017 violent
white supremacist rally in
Charlottesville. Today, as it
nears its unveiling, Charlot-
tesville remains atop the na-
tional dialogue about race.
And Virginia’s top elected of-
ficial, Gov. Ralph Northam,
D, is embroiled in a scandal
about a blackface incident
from his past.
The roots of those racial
tensions, Coleman said, are
exactly what the museum
is trying to address. Not by
highlighting division but by
making the Civil War seem
personal and relevant, as
told by the stories of relatable
people.
That means including the
perspectives of women and
people of color from both
North and South. It’s all pre-
sented through displays that
emphasize jagged fragments
media preview tour of the fa-
cility, which is an expansion
and merger of two older mu-
seums.
“We . . . wanted people
to walk into something that
maybe disoriented their ex-
pectations of the Civil War
story,” said John Murphy of
Solid Light, the company that
designed the exhibits.
One of the original mu-
seums that has been incor-
porated into this new venue
was attached to the White
House of the Confederacy,
where Jefferson Davis plot-
ted the war with his generals.
That facility had one of the
most extensive collections of
Confederate artifacts in the
world, assembled in the years
after the Civil War by ladies
from each state in the South
who wanted to commemo-
rate their “Lost Cause.”
While the old building had
250 items on permanent dis-
play, the new one has 550.
There are nearly 15,000 more

Mother’s Day
Genesis 3:7 — “Then the eyes
of them both were opened,
and they knewe that they
were naked, and they sewed
figtree leaues together, and
made themselues breeches,”
What’s different, though,
is the story that they tell. Mu-
seum chief Christy Coleman,
curator Cathy Wright and
their staffs and contractors
have set out with the grandest
— a reconstructed house
is literally blown to bits, its
wooden siding erupting
across the ceiling and morph-
ing into angular video screens
— and jarring colors.
in storage.
Though the Confeder-
ate museum had tried to ex-
pand its depiction of history,
showcasing contributions of
women and enslaved people,

Sunday, May 12th, 2019

the site states. The King James
Bible does not use the word
“breeches.”
of ambitions to reframe the
way visitors view this crucial
part of American history and
The motif “ties into the
idea of a fractured nation,”
Wright said Friday during a
it was tethered to a tradition-
al presentation: North and
South, slavery and freedom.
“We want to get away from
the mythmaking and back to
history,” said Coleman, who
helped lead the creation of
the new institution.
The new galleries show
women as well as people of
Native American, Asian and
Hispanic descent, and free
and enslaved black people,
alongside the usual white
male generals. Many of the
photographs have been col-
orized in an attempt to bring
them to life.

MOTHER’S DAY BUFFET

The result is surprising, like
seeing modern people cast
back into historical settings.

SUNDAY, MAY 12th • 12PM-4PM An imposing, wall-sized pho-

tograph in one gallery shows
eight of Virginia’s members
Soup Station: Famous Clam Chowder & Italian Wedding Soup of Congress from the post-
On the Buffet: Airline Chicken Marsala wild mushroom and sweet war 1870s — and all of them
marsala wine sauce, Haddock Florentine, Smoked Beef Brisket, are black. They gaze across
the room at an iconic paint-
Honey Glazed Ham, Penne Alfredo, Garlic Mashed Potato ing of Lee and Gen. Thomas
Vegetable Medley, Mac Salad, Ambrosia Salad, Garden Salad, “Stonewall” Jackson in their
last encounter.
Fresh Made Breads, Scones, Danishes, Muffins Many of the museum’s sto-
Dessert Station: Cheesecake Bars, Assorted Cakes, Blueberry ries are aimed at defying con-
Banana Bread Pudding ventional ideas about the war.
Wives who pushed their hus-
ADULTS $22.95 - SENIORS $20.95 - CHILDREN $12.95 (12 & UNDER) bands to fight the Yankees in
1861, for instance, sometimes
315-963-3830 • ACADEMY ST., MEXICO, NY 13114 decided a few years later it
wasn’t worth it.